Sunday, December 23, 2012

from: Bill R. to: "tiangotlost@gmail.com" date: Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 11:16 AM subject: tattoo mystery Hello: My name is Bill and I am writing to you from Florida. Recently, I've met a lady that has many tattoos. I asked her about one of them, and she embarrassingly admitted to me that having gotten it quite a long time ago (being her first one), she does not remember what it says. It is apparently a phrase of some sort written in kanji. I immediately recognized the first symbol as "tao", or "do" (the way/path/road), but the others are unfamiliar to me. Clearly, with So many kanji in the world, it is daunting to try to find them all.
I've attached a photo of the mystery tattoo if you could be so kind as to help in translating it. Thank you very much, and I hope your day finds you well, Bill

Hi dude, I don't know how to post a new image in your blog, so I'm sending this e-mail, I hope you can help me with this. I really need to know what is the meaning of this tattoo.Hope you can help me...

Monday, November 19, 2012

from: JKto: "tiangotlost@gmail.com"date: Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 9:09 PMsubject: Tattoo meaning if any?I got this tattoo 17 years ago in NYC. Tattoos were not totally legal in the city yet and I was underage. Internet was not in full swing either. The tattoos were supposed to have read, "Strength and Courage." I'm sure they don't. LoL! If you could tell me what the characters mean (if anything), I would appreciate it.Thanks,JKreasy

Sunday, August 12, 2012

from: Gabriel D.

to: "tiangotlost@gmail.com"

date: Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 8:12 AM

subject: suspicious looking tattoo

Hello, Tian.

I've been reading your HanziSmatter blog for a while now and I've always found it equally amusing and educational.
A little while back one of my friends has gotten his ankle tattooed as you can see in the attached image.

He said it is something related to the concept of "family", but that the tattoo artist himself didn't really make it clear what it meant.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

from: Laura M.

to: tiangotlost@gmail.com

date: Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 5:54 AM

subject: A youtuber's tattoo

I was watching some tattoo videos on youtube, and this lady seems to think this tattoo is her star-sign, Aries. What does it actually mean? She also joked people say it means "egg fried rice", so it will be amusing if it's actually something along those lines.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

The character is actually the Japanese katakana ホ (ho) not 木 (ki, tree). The mistaken use of ‘ho’ is quite unfortunate considering the woman as both subject and canvas. And yes, the hip-hop slang meaning of ‘ho’ (whore) is known in Japan and written with the same character.

Monday, March 12, 2012

So I asked Cindy what she thought the tattooed symbols running down her neck and spine meant. She replied:

The bottom two were supposed to be success… then respect.

Oh well. Works either way. It is what it is. You can put whatever name you want.

Queen OF The World is what I prefer.

I followed up by asking Cindy what she thought the second, very unusual, symbol meant. She said, "Oh, that's just a cross for Jesus."

Tentatively, this is what I had to work with:

1. mǔ 母 ("mother")

2. zǐ 子 ("child"), or perhaps some kind of cross

3. wù 物 ("thing, object")

4. guì 贵 ("precious; expensive")

With considerable effort, I could get that to mean "Mother and child are precious things." But I was not satisfied with this interpretation, both because of my uncertainty over the second symbol and because it required me to accept a strained interpretation of the final two characters.